‘Selling’holds major importance in a business as it controls the growth and development of business and forms the major base for revenue generation.However, it is hailed as the most difficult task of all the functions carried out in a business; most probably because the success in selling is not completely guaranteed by sales personnel’s skills. There is always an uncertainty till the selling is done. Sales personnel have to take a lot of rejection and chase targets, often with adverse physical infrastructure that makes things worse. They have to manage too many inputsthat confuse them andadd burden to their cognitive load. Gradually, such a pressure results in a fall in personal credibility and the relationship-building ability of the sales personnel. Furthermore, the cut throat competition that stems from the advent of globalization has been burdening companies and sales managers in particular to heighten net realizations (yields) or margins.

The need for a transformative sales guidance system that has the ability to drive growth in business inflamed the entrepreneurial spirit in Arunabh Das Sharma, Former President, Bennett & Coleman and Co. Ltd.And Ravi Dhariwal ex CEO of BCCL (Times Group) and led to the establishment of Sagacito Technologies, a mobile first, cloud-based enterprise Solutions Company that is powered with data analytics and committed to deliver ‘Informed Intelligence’. The company is found with the vision of revamping Pricing and Revenue management of businesses through its suite of revolutionary sales guidance products and tools.Bringing science to the art of sales; the company strives to integrate sales acumen with advanced data science for achieving insights and intelligence that empower businesses to maximize profit margins and market shares. With its suite of exclusive products and tools, the company aims to ease the whole process of sales for a business by providing a system that consistently recommends the ‘Right price’, which is the key to revenue generation and ultimate profitability.

Product Portfolio

The firm’s vision is firmly rooted in belief that having the required information to make the right choice at the ‘Point of Execution’ is the key to achieve success in business. ‘Point of Execution’ or the point just before a sale is made is the stage in the process of sales where the sales person needs maximum support to make sure that the sale happens successfully. The company’s proprietary product platform leverages an absolute blend ofdata science, machine learning and artificial intelligence to create exclusive products that provide the answers needed just before the sale is made.

Let’s take a brief look into Sagacito’s unique products:

P-Mod – This is an adaptive planning module that can do in-market simulations, sensitivity analysis and deployment of the annual operating plan at the day / sales person level. It ensures that the salesperson wakes up to a task specific guidance and that his/her actions are then monitored to deliver the business plan. The business plan itself is dynamic and constantly adapts depending on how the week/month/year is progressing and also allows for changes to the plan made by management.

Y-Max – A product for maximizing yield, Y-Max uses a predictive pricing and optimization algorithm to deliver a “most likely” price that maximizes the net realization as well as recommends the most optimal page position. A combination of both can drive yield up by 5-8% per year, which may translate to a double digit PBT (Profit before Tax) growth.

P-Gov – A product that uses data science to work in conjunction with Y-Max to eliminate bad deals, to create transparency and to ensure that all approvals are instant.

Rev-X – The revenue multiplier that has a proven track record of delivering ‘Profitable Growth’ to clients. It provides real-time ‘cross-sale and up sale’ recommendations that enables the salesperson to sell more to the existing clients. Also, it does predictive churn modeling for clients to ensure that while the yield is going up, it is not coming at the cost of market share.

Value to Clients

Once associated with Sagacito, a client gets access to a technically powered revolutionary system that transforms the front end sales space of the company and enables it to achieve amazing figures in profits. The client’s businessgains numerous benefits through an exclusive machine learning based price guidance system that generates the optimal price quote for every transaction and enhances the chances of making a sale. The system offers step by step guidance to the sales peopleand directs them on what to sell; how to sell and to whom; and at what price/ mix combination. It provides real time insights on “Cross and Upsell” possibilities and has the ability to manage any deviations based on client negotiations in market. It acts as an Artificial Intelligence powered virtual assistant to the sales people and supports them during the entire sales process. In addition to that, there are features that provide a hassle free and smooth experience to the user; the system operates completely on mobile devices and works on‘Pay as you use’ model and needs no investment on hardware.

Predictive and prescriptive analytics to recommend the pricing and mix of products to be sold in B2B negotiations

Game theoretic modeling and Artificial intelligence for real-time insights

Use of Python, Hadoop, Spark and MINLP solvers to deal with multi-objective problems involving complex constraints

Strong Capabilities in handling large data sets both in batch and streaming mode

Open Source Technology Stack

Extensive use of Amazon Web Services in conjunction with best in class industry tools

Road Ahead

In a short span of time, Sagacito has managed to establish a firm footing in the market with its exclusive and successful approach towards instilling efficiency in front end sales segment. The firm, striding on the path of success, has developed a clear roadmap for next five years which is in three phases. Sagacitoplans tostrenghthen its roots in India and South Asia for the next eighteen months. Post which it hopes toexpand its footprints in Asia Pacific Region, Middle East & Africa, United States and Europe over the nextfew years. At present the company offers its services for B2B Channel Sales for Media, CPG and Hospitality. As a plan for next three years, the company focuses on extending its unique portfolio services for diversified industry verticals such as Telecom, Hospitality, E-commerce, Airlines, and BFSI& Infrastructure. In addition to that, the company is endeavoring persistently towards widening its matchless product and service portfolio that already envelops innovative and transformative products such as P-Mod, Y-Max, P-Gov and Rev-X. The team would focus on creating leading edge offerings namely, Instantaneous algorithmic pricing, Gamification, Virtual assistant (both chat and speech), Point of sale data collection and Client level Intelligence. With an aspiration to change the face of how functions are carried out in the domain, Sagacito is making determined efforts tocome up with groundbreaking products as NLP based Voice virtual assistant, multilingual UI’s, Sales training tools, Sales Collaboration tools, Sales Incentive tools and Auction / Reverse auction bid tools.